The White Lie by Walter T. Rea Sr.

8/18/2019 The White Lie by Walter T. Rea Sr.

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THE WHITE LIEWalter T. Rea Sr.

[address withheld]

California

[phone withheld]

August 1992, RENEWED Oct. 2004

WHO LIED - THEM OR ME?

Dear Friends:

In the December 1991 issue of Spectrum, which calls itself The Journal of the Association of

Adventist Forums, there appeared an article by Jerry A. Gladson, entitled “Convert To Scholar:An Odyssey In Humility.” Jerry Gladson is Vice President and Dean of Academic Affairs of the

Psychological Studies Institute, an interdenominational graduate school of Psychology and

Religion in Atlanta, Georgia. Previous to this he was Professor of Religion at Southern College

[now Southern Adventist University], from which he received his B. A. He holds an M.A. and a

Ph.D. in Old Testament from Vanderbilt University.

In the article he says “neither have we dealt adequately with the questions raised by Walter

Rea regarding Ellen White. Although his claims tended to be overstated, the church has

gradually come to concede almost all his major points. In 1990, Fred Veltman reported to thechurch at large his findings in two articles appearing in Ministry Magazine, “The Desire of Ages

Project, The Data” (October 1990, December 1990) careful to point out that he had examined

only a small section of The Desire Of Ages, thus making it difficult to generalize, Veltman

concluded that Ellen White did use sources without giving credit, and that she, at times even

denied doing so. The Desire Of Ages, he noted, was dependent on secondary materials. On the

whole, an average of about 31 percent of the 15 chapters was in some way indebted to other

material. Worse, her history, chronology, and theological interpretation often cited confidently

by Adventists were not always reliable.” Spectrum, volume 21, number 5, December 1991.

While it is true that the church has tried to conceal information from it’s members as to what

issues have been resolved by the studies of both Fred Veltman and myself, some of those issues

have been admitted and / or resolved. Some of these are:

a. There was massive borrowing on all levels of Mrs. White’s writings. The church had never

before either known or admitted such borrowings to the membership or the public, no matter


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what we continue to read from the Review or other writers. (Glendale Tapes, 1990).

b. What was written was not always accurate, that is, she made mistakes. It cannnot be said

therefore that she was always speaking for God. (Robert Olson, Ron Graybill, Glendale and LongBeach Tapes).

c. Others helped her to do the gathering of material and also to do the writings. (Graybill

paper, 1919 Bible Conference).

d. All of what she said she saw did not come from visions. (Don McAdams, Ron Graybill,

Robert Olson Papers, White Estate).

e. All that came to the church in these writings were not inspired. (1919 Bible Conference,

Robert Olson, White Estate, etc.).

f. She was influenced by others in what she wrote and those that influenced her never

claimed to be influenced by God or inspired themselves. (1919 Bible Conference, Robert Olson,White Estate).

g. Mrs. White ate meat most of her life and did not take much of the advice she claimed came

from God. (White Estate papers, Ron Graybill study.).

h. She was not as uneducated and unread as we have always been told.

Most of these issues are now settled in the church, whether or not each individual has settled

them for themselves. The discussion about ‘Inspiration’ will go on as long as people look for ways

to maintain views that are no longer logical or tenable.


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What has concerned me more than the reaction of the system of Adventism to what was

found has been the reaction of so many people to me personally. It is indeed astonishing to find

some people in Adventism that profess to believe and keep the ten commandments and listen to

them violate the one that says ‘THOU SHALT NOT BEAR FALSE WITNESS AGAINSTTHY NEIGHBOR.’ It would be impossible to relate all the false and nasty tales and stories that

have been told about me by people who have never met me or taken the time to even read the

book The White Lie. Even the system keeps on lying. I know of no one with an average I.Q. who

believes that the Review speaks with all knowledge or is ‘inspired.’

It is also interesting to see how a denomination that has failed to recognize their fellow

human beings in the religious world, as anything other than the whores and harlots of the book

of Revelation and have publicly said so, and then profess to be so hurt when someone points out

to them some of their own failings and faults, as we have certainly done in the book The WhiteLie. Recently we have heard that we have repented of writing the book, yet no one on the planet

has ever discussed with me either my ‘repentance’ or my ‘recanting.’ Why would I ask forgiveness

for what all scholars recognize as the truth? I AM PROUD of what I have accomplished by the

research and for the few who hypocritically claim to have been hurt by reading it, (and some

have even claimed they were hurt when they have not read it) we have heard from thousands

who have been blessed because of the material that we found and brought to the attention of the

Church.

No one can change history no matter how or why they try, and that history is--that the then

President of the General Conference, Neal Wilson, at my urging, asked eighteen scholars of the

Church to meet with me and review my material on January 28, 29, 1980, at the Glendale

Adventist Hospital. Those scholars were:

G. Ralph Thompson, G.C. Chairman D. R. McAdams,

College President

R. W. Olson, White Estate Jack Provonsha, LomaLinda Minister

H. L. Calkins, Conference President W. L. Richards, Bible

Dept. P.U.C

H. E. Douglass, Pacific Press Mrs. Ottilie Stafford,

English Dept.


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F. E. J. Harden G.C. Education M. C. Torkelson,

Administration

W. G. Johnsson, Andrews University L. D. Venden, Loma

Linda Minister

Harold Lance, Attorney at Law J. O. Waller, English,

Andrews University

W. R. Lesher General Conference Mervyn A. Warren,

Oakwood College

Walter D. Blehm, President Pacific Union J. J. Wiley, Attorney at

Law, U.S.C. Law

At the end of the meeting they made the following recommendations.

1) That we recognize that Ellen White, in her writings, used various sources more extensively

than we had previously believed.

2) That, as soon as possible, a plan be developed for thoroughly informing our churchadministrators concerning the nature and extent of Ellen White’s use of sources.

3) That immediate study be given to a plan for educating the church in easily grasped steps on

the subject of inspiration and Ellen White’s use of sources.

4) That an in-depth study on the writing of the Desire of Ages be implemented.

5) That a person trained in scholarly methodology be asked to work with Elder Rea.

6) To express our appreciation to Elder Rea for the enormous amount of work he has done.


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I rest my case. With that kind of endorsement, would any of you have done any differently?

It was only when the Church backed out of the Agreement that I then wrote The White Lie so

that all who wanted to know could know what the committee had promised they should know.

Who lied, them or me? Now that you know we love you all.

[ signed ]

Walter T. Rea

[Letter corrected for spelling and punctuation, formated for HTML, emphasis supplied.]

Click here to view the original scanned letter and notarization document

http://www.ellenwhiteexposed.com/rea/letter.gif

Also read: http://www.ellenwhiteexposed.com/rea/letter2004.htm


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The White Lie!

By Walter T. Rea

Introduction by the Author Walter T. Rea

Almost from the first time I heard of her, early in my teens, I became a devotee of Ellen G. Whiteand her writings. I learned to type by copying from her book Messages to Young People. In high

school and college, I often went from room to room in the dormitory, gathering Ellen White

quotations from others to use in my preparations for becoming a minister in the Seventhnday

Adventist Church. It was during those days that I conceived the idea of preparing an Adventist

commentary by compiling from the writings of Ellen White all the statements pertaining to each

book of the Bible, each doctrine, and each Bible character.

Early in my ministerial life (which began in central California in the latter 1940s), I compiled two

volumes of Old and New Testment Bible biographies, incorporating with each entry the

pertinent quotations found in Ellen White's works. Some prominent persons in the church

encouraged me in this project and thought that the Ellen G. White Estate might publish thesecollections to use through the book club the church was operating in those days. After a good

deal of time and correspondence, I finally realized that I had been naive and that the White

Estate had no thought of collaborating in such a way with anyone who appeared to be

encroaching on their turf. They let me know in no uncertain terms that they held that “heavenly

franchise” and that they would look with disfavor on anyone's getting into their territory.]

Independently, however, I did publish two volumes of Bible biographies and a third volume on

Daniel and Revelation, all based on Ellen White's works, and soon these books were sold in most

Adventist Book and Bible houses and used in many Adventist schools and colleges in North

America.

The White Estate people were not very happy about all of this, and they brought up the subject

with my regional union and local conference presidents. After some backing and hauling,

pushing and shoving, they all agreed that the books could be sold if I would keep a low profile

inasmuch as they didn't think my volumes would be accepted on a broad scale anyway. In

subsequent years, however, tens of thousands were sold.

While working on my projected volume four (Ellen White's quotations on Bible doctrines), I

happened across something interesting at Orlando, Florida, where I was pastor of the Kress

Memorial Church, named for Doctors Daniel H. and Lauretta E. Kress, noted pioneers in the

Adventist medical work. The Kress family gave me an old book by Ellen White, Sketches fromthe Life of Paul, published in 1883 but never reprinted. When I showed this book to a church

member one day, I was told that the problem of the book was that it was too much like another

book that had not been written by Ellen White, and that it had never been reprinted because of

the close similarities. Being of an inquiring mind, I did a comparison study and discovered that

some of the criticism seemed to be true.2

Later, after I transferred to California, the Wellesley P. Magan family, also from established


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publish any report on my work until he and the White Estate staff had been given additional time

to survey the material. I had agreed to his request, and the fact of the agreement had been

recorded in the innhouse memo that he wrote afterward and that I held in my files.

So now I knew that Robert Olson either had a very short memory or was telling a white lie. In

any case, it was obvious that the White Estate people knew much more that they were telling.

The files of the White Estate had referred to a book by William Hanna called The Life of Christ.6

Within twentynfour hours after the Loma Linda meeting, therefore, I had obtained Hanna's

book. From that time on, I have learned more than I ever wanted to know.

Spectrum, a journal published independently by the Association of Adventist Forums, gave a

background account of a January 1980 committee meeting at Glendale, California. This meeting

was called by General Conference President Neal C. Wilson at my urging that consideration be

given to the scope of the findings of Ellen White's literary indebtedness. Eighteen of the church's

appointed representatives went on record that what my research showed was alarming in its

proportions but that the study should continue-with additional help.7

Likewise, Spectrum later reported my dismissal by the church8 (after thirtynsix years of service)

primarily because of the disclosure article initiated and written by religious editorJohn Dart and

published in the Los Angeles Times.9 Not one of the officials doing the firing had ever talked

with Dart. Not one had seen the research on which the article was based. The heart of the issue

itself was not important to church officials. It was necessary only that someone be punished so

that others would stay in line and so that both Ellen White and the Seventhnday Adventist

Church would appear to be innocent of any wrongdoing.

In view of what I have observed, experienced, and learned, I have thought it proper andnecessary to record for future generations the findings of my ongoing study. These coming

generations will want to know the truth about what has been unearthed from the past. It will be

a part of what they will take into consideration in their religious experience and judgments.

Despite much good counsel to the contrary, I have chosen the title THE WHITE LIE for my

book. I do not apply that term separately and only to Ellen G. White. When we (any of us) give

our consent or support to perpetuating a myth (in whole or in part) about any person or any

thing, we ourselves are thereby party to a white lie. The message of this book is to help reveal to

all of us that often we do indeed carry on a legend.

The worst lies that are told are often the ones told in religion- because they are told in a way thatthe assumption is that God endorses them and that therefore they are for our good. That that

good can, and does, become harmful, wrongful, and even evil does not usually occur to those

zealous persons who promote legends in the name of God.

In this study I have intended to deal not only with the facts as I have found them but also with

their outworking in the church and in us personally as I have come to view that outworking. I

hope also to leave a lesson or two for those who may be looking for such lessons.


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Much study remains to be done on the question of why some of us accept as much as we do from

whomever we do. What thing is it deep within us that is tapped to make us react as

unquestioningly as we do to unreliable information-so that we make it “truth” and let it govern

our thinking and our lives?

At this stage in my thinking, if there is blame left to be assessed or portioned out, I must acceptmuch of it for having been so gullible, without adequate study or research on my own part, as to

consent to much of that which was originally portrayed to me as “the truth” but which, in fact,

contains much untruth that diverts us from that about which we ought to be concerned

primarily. The major regret I have is that time will not allow me to correct some of the

misinformation that I myself unwarily “bought” and passed on to others as the white lie.

Every institution, every corporate entity, every established system- whether political, economic,

social, or religous-must have its patron saint. That saint may be a founder, a benefactor, a

charismatic leader, or a longndead mystic figure. Regardless of the category or the time period of

existence, the patron is venerated even if he was a vampire; he is canonized even if he was a con

artist; he is given sainthood even if he was a known sinner.

There is something in the human mind that seeks to create the unreal-to imagine or pretend that

something is so even if all logic says it is not so. What is unseeable we claim is a vision; what is

fallible we label perfection; what is illusory we give authority. Much study has been given to why

we want to believe, and indeed have to believe, the “permissible lie.” For my purpose here, it is

enough to say that we do so -and we seem to have to do so. For if we reject the fantasy we now

hold, probably we will find or invent another in our effort to keep from facing reality.

The sellers of nostrums for fantasizers (who tend to hold psychic manifestations in awe) are the

supersalesmen of the psychic. They are the ones who manipulate, maneuver, and massage theconscience of those they wish to convince. In all times and in all places, they have been the

magicians that led the populace to believe that the emperor really was dressed with the

unseeable, and that those who will listen and come to them for counsel and guidance (for which,

of course, proper payment must be given) will be among the few who really do see what isn't

there to see.

The element that is essential, without exception, to any con game is the lie. To be sure, it is a

white lie, a small thing that deviates from the truth a little, over and over until, with the passing

of time and under the right circumstances, it expands into an enormous hoax.

The techniques of the supersalesmen are few, but absolutely essential. They consist of playingdown the humanity of the one to be venerated; exalting the venerated one's virtues to the level

of the miraculous; denying access to reliable source records and facts of the significant past;

appealing to the inclination to be superstitious (or at least gullible); and buying time.

One Webster dictionary edition says that a white lie is a minor lie uttered from polite, amiable, or

pardonable motives; a polite or harmless fib.


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The fact of Ellen White's borrowing or plagiarizing has been documented and acknowledged by

recognized representatives of the Seventhnday Adventist Church over the years. But the

information revealing the extent of her literary dependence has been deliberately kept from lay

members until independent researchers began to make the facts public. Thus new problems arise

because of these discoveries that have not yet been faced by the Adventist people or their

present leaders. For example:

1. Why did Ellen change most, if not all, of the copied author's speculations and suppositions into

absolutes, so that the copywork made it appear that she was always on the scene of action in

some “visionary” form, when obviously she wasn't?

2. How do the footnotes and Bible texts she copied as fillers from others meet the criteria

established for inspiration?

3. How do the abuse and misuse of others' material on an extensive scale fit into the ethics of

either her time or ours?

4. Inasmuch as the extent of the copywork makes it certain that for Ellen to have done it all

herself was humanly impossible, who among her helpers gets the credit for her “inspiration”?

5. Whose authority are we now dealing with?

We much acknowledge that since the beginning of the 1844 movement a great many people

have regarded Ellen White as Adventism's principal authority. They must now find room for

adjustment in their thinking (and, for many, in their living) on a level different from that of the

past. This could be very distressing. Whether or not the situation in which the church now finds

itself fits our definition of a white lie, and whether or not the fib has been harmless to one's ownpersonal values, way of thinking, and life experience, each person will have to judge for himself.

To understand, in a small way, how people arrive at where they are is possible only if one looks at

where they have been, what manner of salesmen sold them the trip, and what motivated them to

go. It is not possible to view all these aspects in one lump. But we will touch on what

circumstances make a “true believer,” what kind of supersalesmen have sold the wares, and what

happens to those who buy.

Books such as The Status Seekers, The Permissible Lie, and The True Believer10 hint at the

connection between all disciplines-economic, social, and religious. In all these disciplines

salesmen sell their product by using the white lie. Though the salesmen of social and economicideas claim to be interested in your present, they are really more interested in theirfuture.

Salesmen of the psychic claim to be interested in your future, but what they are really interested

in is their present. All hucksters sell the white lie in whatever size or shape they think their

public will buy. Adventists know and accept these facts of life about the systems of others; but

they believe that their own system is “different” and therefore better. Very little study has been

offered to prove or to disprove their belief.


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Most people accept the fact that there are few, if any, holy men left selling merchandise in social

or economic or political reform. What is harder for them to acknowledge or accept is that there

are likewise few, if any, saints in religion. There are no holy men or women except as we

ourselves make them so by our own wishful thinking. Because we have always with us this

pretense factor, it is easy for the supersalesmen of religion to gain control through our own quirks

and consciences and to exercise authority over our minds and actions. There have been many onthis planet who have sold themselves to the world as saints offering salvation for the future-when

in reality they were just supersalesmen who, by instilling guilt and fear and by bending their

followers to their own will, have robbed us of our freedom to think.

As you read, keep in mind that someone has sold you the idea that what you believe deep within

yourself is “unique” and has authority from God, the highest court of appeal; that you are

“different” because of this authority; and that you will be “saved” if you follow the rules. The

problem with this line of thinking is that your truth may be only your saint's interpretation of

truth, and the pronouncements you have accepted as authority may be ideas your saint borrowed

from others.

This, I think, is what the study will show concerning Ellen G. White. And if the same amount of

information were available on the saints of other groups, the same would be true of them as well.

Why we still want to believe what we have come to believe is what the white lie is all about.

In this odyssey that we take together, the supersalesmen will be the clergymen, the preachers, the

reverends, the divines-who more than any professionals have been granted license (both by the

people themselves and by the state) to peddle their wares to the unwary, to project their fears on

the fearful, and to sell their guilt to the remorseful.

The patron saint will be Ellen Gould White, the canonized leader of the Seventhn

day AdventistChurch-who symbolizes all saints of whatever faith, and through whom the adherents approach

their concept of God and seek to obtain the unobtainable salvation by appeasement of or

through that saint.

The true believers will be the unwary, the fearful, the guilt-ridden, the overzealous, the

wellnintentioned, the unquestioning. Lacking personal confidence in God, they seek him

through their chosen saint, who they think has an unfailing pipeline to the heavenly places.

Inasmuch as the body of the material presented has to do with the “literary appropriation of

works of others,” I too have copied from everybody. With no sense of shame I have used material

that has been lifted, borrowed, or otherwise taken outright from whatever source available orthought necessary to use for evidence and clarity.

I would gladly glve credit to all those who, by whatever method and from whatever source,

brought forth material for my use so that readers may see the evidence for themselves and know

the nature and extent of the Adventist white lie. But because of the nature of the subject and the

administrative and peer pressures brought to bear on both position and person, those many to

whom I am indebted cannot be named.


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This book seeks to trace the birth, growth, and full bloom of the white lie in Adventism. It

cannot explain all the strings that bind us, Gullivernlike, on our travel-because access is thus far

denied to many sources of the facts. It can only point the reader to certain sources so that he can

see for himself what is there to be seen.

I do not seek to show those who, having eyes, do not wish to see, or to shout at those who,having ears, do not wish to hear. But because someone has an obligation to the generations that

will follow, this material is put forth to light a little candle in a world of superstition and fear and

guilt. It may be that the flame, though even a small one, can help light the path to the real Saint

of all saints-Jesus Christ.

Walter Rea: the Author

Reference and Notes

1. The Ellen G. White Estate is the agency having custodianship of the writings, correspondence,

records, sermons, clippings, personal book collection, memorabilia, and miscellaneous

materials-left in trust by Mrs. White at her death in 1915. The Estate is administered by the

General Conference of Seventhn

day Adventists at the world headquarters office in Washington,D.C.

2. The book similar to Ellen White's Sketches from the Life of Paul is The Life and Epistles of the

Apostle Paul. I t was written by William J. Conybeare and John S. Howson and had been

published first in London (1851n52) and later in New York. Mrs. White's Sketches was never

reprinted after its issuance in 1883 until a facsimile reproduction was made in 1974 by the

Review and Herald Publishing Association.

3. Alfred Edersheim, Elisha the Prophet (London: The Religious Tract Society,1882). It was

Edersheim's “new edition-revised” that was in Ellen White's library.

4. Edersheim's The Bible History: Old Testament was published first as a seven volume set

(1876n87). Wm. B. Eerdman's Publishing Company reprinted the 1890 edition in two volumes

(“complete and unabridged”) m 1949.

5. Alfred Edersheim, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, 5 bks. (Landon: Longmans, Green

and Co., 1883. New York: E. R. Herrick, 1883).

6. William Hanna, The Life of Christ (New York: The American Tract Society, n.d. (pref.1863).

This book was published first in six separate volumes as The Life of Our Lord, which is the title

listed by the EGW Estate, Document File 884, in Ellen White's library.

7. Douglas Hackleman, “GC Committee Studies Ellen White's Sources,” Spectrum 10, no. 4

(March 1980): 9n15.

8. Eric Anderson, et al., “Must the Crisis Continue?” Spectrum 11, no. 3 (February 1981):

44n52.


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9. John Dart, “Plagiarism Found in Prophet Books,” Los Angeles Times (23 October 1980), p. 1.

10. Vance Packard, The Status Seekers (New York: Simon and Schuster, Pocket Books, 1961).

Samm Sinclair Baker, The Permissible Lie (Boston: Beacon Press, 1968). Eric Hoffer, The True

Believer (New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, Perennial Library, 1951).


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The White Lie!

Chapter 1

How To Change History

by Walter Rea

With the turn of the century to the 1800s the world had a lot of patching up to do. America hadhad her contest with Britain and was on the doorstep of becoming a nation. The European

continent was staggering to its feet after another bruising and exhausting fight with itself, not

unlike what had been going on for centuries. The nations of the East (Russia being the large

symbol) were still causing concern to the West, as had been so since the territories of Russian

religions had fought the Battle of Tours in 732 and the Mongolian hordes had come down from

the North to try to take the Holy Land from the Christians.

Though the years from 1800 to 1900 would be a time of stabilization, they would also be years of

change and uncertainty, a dichotomy that is not unusual in history. Political, religious, and social

values would all be re-examined-and on many levels discarded. In American politics, the

twon

party system would emerge, and the territories that were to become states would begin tocopy some form of nationalism. Personalities would leave their mark on national and local law

and political framework. The Civil War would weaken and yet unite a nation. The European

nations would continue their struggle for identity and power.

The expansion of the American West brought great change in values. Land and individualism

became important considerations in the lives of people. Property was available to many for the

first time. Things became desirable, many things. Life and progress that for many (for almost a

millenium) had hardly seemed desirable, and for most (elsewhere in the world) hardly obtainable,

now lay on the golden shores of the new land and seemed within reach of those who would work

and strive to obtain. Opportunity, a word scarcely recognized in most of the world, seemed athand.

In religion, the early part of the century, from the 1820s to the 1850s, was to see one of the last

gasps of the oldntime drama of fear and hellfire in the name of God and heaven. That theme

which had been played out on the stages of Europe, by both Catholics and Protestants, leaped

the seas and became an exclusive American phenomenon in the Millerite movement. New in

only some of its details, it replayed for the fearful and the guiltnridden the oldntime religious

song that “every. body wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die.” But die you must, said

William Miller and his followers, and they even set the time for the event. After a lot of trouble

with the heavenly calculators, they set the date of October 22, 1844, for the event (barring any

serious complications, of course).

It was a great drama, that Millerite movement, with charges by each group of players swinging

wildly to one side of the stage or the other, each claiming to have God on their side. One would

have had to pay good money to see such a show anywhere else at any other time. But in America

it was free. It featured personalities, persons, occupations, sermons, diatribes, invectives,

recriminations, attacks, and counter attacks-indeed a real holy war, all in the name of God.

Reading of those days, one wonders if the real issue was not the same one it always seems to be in


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religion: Who is going to control the concessions in the here and in the hereafter?

It didn't take long for one group to buy up the franchise. What the Catholics and Protestants had

been fighting about for centuries in Europe a group of leftovers from the Millerite movement

decided to market in America. They had no thought initially of a worldwide movement. But if

the product sold, the world would become their oyster and heaven would become their ghetto.They were to become the Adventists; the Seventh Day would be their banner and the Second

Advent would be their song-both ideas the used products of the Millerite movement.

There was really nothing new in the banner or the song. The Hebrews of old had held to the

seventh day throughout the Old Testament. New Testament Christians had given some

attention and lip service to the Second Coming since the days of Christ. But the names and dates

and places would be changed to protect the guilty. In the minds of Ellen G. White (the Advent

movement's psychic leader) and her supporters, there emerged the practice of interpreting the

Scriptures (past, present, and future) in terms of Adventist concepts and beliefs-not a new idea

but one that would fit the times of the nineteenth century. The ancient Hebrews had promoted

the idea that they were the keepers of the oracles of God (and there are those who still believethey are). The Catholics in the New Testament times, and after, worked to perfect that Jewish

idea to make Catholicism the custodian of all truth, even if they had to chain part of it to the

wall. Now in the middle of the nineteenth century it was the Adventists' turn.

In order for any group or organization to pull off the idea that they have been given the

concessions to the hereafter, that they are indeed the ones God has chosen to sell the

indulgences for this life and the utopia to come, they must always tackle the job of rearranging or

reassigning the facts of history and rewriting the Canon (the Bible of the “true believer”) so that

both will be in harmony with their preconceived ideas, misconceptions, and prejudices-at the

same time claiming that the Holy Book is the final word of authority. Quite a task for anyone inany age. No wonder the idea has never really caught on in the religious world for too long a time,

although those who have tried deserve A for effort.

With no thought of failure, the Adventists assigned this awesome task to the person they liked to

call the “weakest of the weak,” Ellen Gould Harmon. Ellen was born a twin at Gorham, Maine,

November 26, 1827, to Robert and Eunice Harmon, practicing members of the Methodist

Episcopal Church, and she would marry James White on August 30, 1846, three months short of

her ninteenth birthday.

There were no advance signs that she was to become the hometown girl who made good. She did

not begin with fame or fortune. Her chances of catching the brass ring seemed slim untilmisfortune smiled on her. When she was nine, an accident happened that, according to her, “was

to affect my whole life.” ~ Like the apostle Paul with his eye trouble, Ellen, throughout the rest

of her life, as we are often reminded, was the product of her physical misfortune. She had fainting

and dizzy spells; her nervous system made her prostrate; at times she gave in to despair or

despondence.

After a blow to the head from a stone thrown by a schoolmate, she gave up her schooling and, as


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Adventists enjoy telling it, never gained an education beyond the third grade.2 What should be

noted is that she did not gain a formal education beyond that grade. All of us learn or are

educated as long as we wish to be and are aware, and there is little proof that Ellen was not

aware.

Here was a readyn

made opportunity. Religious history gives ample evidence that the “truebeliever” is much more likely to accept the dictums of the simpleminded if these dictums can

somehow be given a heavenly setting. Especially in Western Christianity, religious belief

generally centers on a few main themes: All men are created (not necessarily equal, a rather new

political idea); all men are sinners (and women too, another rather new political idea), whatever

that may mean. Depending on the system's definition of sin, life is a boat trip through a sea

mined with explosives called temptation-usually defined as women (or men, as the case may be),

wine, and song. And as the curtain falls, man has to die.

Well, that's it, except the excitement and action come when different ones (be they groups or

individuals, organizations, or roving bands) start drawing up the game plan and fretting about the

details. For example, who did the creating, how much time did it take, who was there makingnotes, and how truthful is the record of the event? Who tagged all of us with sin? Was it God, or

that snake in the grass that came in when Adam was down on the south forty? Or do we get it

from our ancestors of past eons? Or is the Devil, like Santa Claus, our dad?

The matter of sin has always fascinated theologians and non-theologians alike. For this reading,

theologians are those who practice defining or playing God. Naturally the one who makes up the

list for others has a jump on the game. Throughout history, most mystics, divines, or theologians

have had a crack at making up the list of sins. One of the safest ways to do this is to leave off the

list the things you personally enjoy. This has been done by most all who make up lists.

And last, the group or organization must tackle that final question: At death where do we go-and

when (before, during, or after)? No one yet has come up with a satisfying answer to this one.

Since it's much harder to get back here once you leave than to get here in the first place, not too

many have come back to give an annual report of the other side. This fact alone gives large

latitude to one of fertile mind, imagination, and ability to describe the horror or the glory of the

hereafter (for a price). It is safe to say that the fear of the trip we have not yet taken is a powerful

weapon in the hands of those who, by some means, have made the trip and come back to sell us

the way.

Ellen was to be equal to the task. She was eventually to leave for the believer (through the

Adventist concepts) information, instruction, admonition, and counsel on all the foregoingmatters. From a shaky start with “amalgamation of man and beast” in one of her early books,3

she straightened things out later with her reading of Paradise Lost. 4 Her extrancanonical visions

of the dialogue, battle, and ouster of Satan and his angels gave vividness and form to John

Milton's great poem that even the Bible writers lacked. Some of her early friends noticed the

similarity and brought it to her attention, but she dismissed the question with the same ease that

she did most criticism. Her grandson, who was to inherit the duties of the keepernof nthenkeys,

gave much the same explanation over a period of forty years-with one interesting deviation in his


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1945 supplement to volume four of her book The Spirit of Prophecy:

Mrs. White ever sought to avoid being influenced by others. Shortly after the Great

Controversy vision of March 14, 1858, at meetings in Battle Creek held over a weekend, she told

the high points of what had been shown her in that vision. Elder T. N. Andrews, who at the time

was in Battle Creek, was much interested. After one of the meetings he told her some of thethings she had said were much like a book he had read. Then he asked if she had read Paradise

Lost. She replied in the negative. He told her that he thought she would be interested in reading

it.

Ellen White forgot about the conversation, but a few days later Elder Andrews came to the

home with a copy of Paradise Lost and offered it to her. She was busily engaged in writing the

Great Controversy vision as it had been shown her. She took the book, hardly knowing just what

to do with it. She did not open it, but took it to the kitchen and out it up on a high shelf,

determined that if there was anything in that book like what God had shown her in vision, she

would not read it until after she had written out what the Lord had revealed to her. It is apparent

that she did later read at least portions of Paradise Lost, for there IS one phrase quoted inEducation. 5

The deviation referred to is the last sentence in the quotation from her grandson-the admission

that she had indeed read John Milton's work. The question that seems to remain is whether she

read it before or after her “vision” of the same controversy. Why she put the book up on a “high

shelf” has remained puzzling to many. Perhaps the higher the better-because of temptation. Who

knows? One writer who has studied the problem of Mrs. White and Milton's Paradise Lost may

give some answers:

Of unusual significance is the correlation found in a number of instances where both authors

depict with some detail an experience which is not found in the Bible. Among such events arethe following:

1. The scene in Heaven before and during the rebellion with the loyal angels trying to win the

disaffected ones back to allegiance to God.

2. The warnings issued to Eve to stay by her husband's side; her subsequent straying.

3. The elaborate setting for the actual temptation with Satan's arguments analyzed point by

point.

4. The detailed picture of the immediate results of sin on Adam and Eve and on the animal and

vegetable world about them.

5. The explanation of the basic reason for Adam's fall: uxoriousness.

6. The angel's chronicling of future events to Adam.

7. The feelings of both Adam and Eve as they left the garden.These likenesses in the narrative on points where the Scriptures are silent intensify the question:

Why are these two authors, living two hundred years apart, so much in agreement on major

facts? 6

Other studies in the same area have asked, and failed to answer, the question of why both

authors, some two hundred years apart, came up with these same nonnbiblical accounts,

although the later writer claimed she knew nothing of the work of the former.


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One by one, Ellen White began to accentuate in her writings (which she claimed came from

“visions”) each and every point of Protestant and Catholic theological controversy. Starting with

the beginning of all beginnings and proceeding through to the end of all ends, she gave a new

and often startlingly inaccurate picture of the great controversy as it is portrayed in the Bible.

Although believers of all faiths have been somewhat hazy about the great controversy, she gave itwith such assurance that some bought her version of it. Her pictures of events, her Insaws, were

to be so indelibly imprinted on the minds of a few that the future pattern of Adventism was set

for generations. At the same time, her account also closed the door that had been opened for

Adventism to make a markedly different contribution to the world concept of religion. 7 And the

door remains closed to this day, because the church of the advent cannot get past the

interpretations of the Canon according to Sister Ellen. No pattern of thought, no emergence of

value, no interpretation of Scripture is allowed officially in Adventism until or unless it has first

been examined, tested and tried-and then dyed in the cloth of Ellen White.

The same could be said of the Mormons with their Joseph Smith, the Christian Scientists with

their Mary Baker Eddy, the Jehovah's Witnesses with their John F. Rutherford, the Lutheranswith their Martin Luther, and others with their patron saints. Each church sees the world

around, and the future beyond, through the eyes of its saints. If there is a world around them to

live in, or one to shun, it must conform to the way it is experienced by their saint. If there is a

heaven to win or a hell to shun, its definition and direction and even its occupants must be

determined by the saint of the system and by that saint's interpretation of the Canon as

demonstrated in that saint's writings-which in turn are kept up to date by reinterpretation by

later saints of the same or similar stripe or system.

It is difficult, if not impossible, for presentnday Adventists to look at themselves and their saint,

Ellen White, in historical perspective. A 1979 article dealing with this view sent shock wavesthrough the church when it appeared in Spectrum, the independent journal published by the

Association of Adventist Forums. The writer, Jonathan Butler, associate professor of church

history at Loma Linda University, did a brilliant piece portraying Ellen White as a product of her

times: “Mrs. White's. . . predictions of the future appeared as projections on a screen which only

enlarged, dramatized and intensified the scenes of her contemporary world.” 8 His conclusions

were that she was a product of her times just as we all are, that it was her world that came to an

end with the changing events of history that were not always fulfilled as she had seen.

This was hard medicine for Adventists to swallow, inasmuch as they had been taught to think of

Ellen and her writings in isolation, as if she had come straight down from heaven and remained

isolated from all events while on earth. It was only natural that they should think thus, for theyhad been hearing for years that “Mrs. White ever sought to avoid being influenced by others.” 9

This theme, which had never applied to any human being before, became the Adventist path

into the unreal.

Not very often, if ever, is one dealing with pure truth, either small or large, in religion. One is

dealing with truth as filtered, expanded, diminished, bounded, or defined by the Insaws of all the

Ellens of Christendom-with a lot of help from the divines. What does emerge from all the froth is


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that the map for this life and the one to come, if indeed it does come, is drawn by the clan-and

thus becomes the Clan Plan. Heaven becomes the main gate to isolation, where all the bad as we

conceive of it (which in humanity's case means other people) is snuffed out, and only us good

guys go marching through. Thus we make our own ghetto.

The succeeding chapters seek to show the Adventist ghetto and how it grew-not too muchunlike the ghettos of other faiths, but with some interesting and devious twists.

References and Notes

1. Ellen C. White, Life Sketches of Ellen G. White (Mountain View: Pacific Press Publishing

Association, 1915), p. 17.

2. EGW, Christian Experience and Teachings (Mountain View: PPPA, 1922), pp. 13n15.

3. EGW, Spiritual Gifts, 4 vols. (Battle Creek: SDA Publishing Association, 1858n60n64)? vol.

3, p. 64.

4. John Milton's Paradise Lost is thought by some to reflect the obsession of many English and

European poets in the first half of the seventeenth century, with the subject of the origin of evil

as portrayed in Genesis. Milton himself was systematically studying the Bible, histories, and

chronicles more than twenty-five years before his epic poem was published in 1667.

5. EGW, The Spirit of Prophecy. The Great Controversy between Christ and Satan, 4 vols.

(Battle Greek: S1)A Publishing Association, 1870n77n78n84), vol. 4, p. 535.

6. Elizabeth Burgeson, “A Comparative Study of the Fall of Man as Treated b~ John Milton and

Ellen G. White” (Master's thesis, Pacific Union College,

7. Ingemar Linden, The Last Trump (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1978),

8. Jonathan M. Butler, “The World of E. G. White and the End of the World,” Spectrum 10, no.

2 (August 1979): 2n13.

9. EGW, The Spirit of Prophecy, vol. 4, p. 535.


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The White Lie!

Chapter 2: Go Shut the Door

by Walter Rea

The development of the Adventist ghetto began almost at once after the Millerite movementreached its peak in 1844 and started its descent. With the help of Ellen White and her “visions,”

God was allowed to do some of the carpenter work on the walls. Ellen was “shown” that the door

of mercy was shut for all those who had not accepted the 1844 message; so the world and most of

those in it were left outside the door. Linden gives a very adequate picture of the events in his

book The Last Trump.'

Exclusiveness, which starts early in any religious plan, took off at once. It's akin to the attitude

“Lord, bless me and my wife, my son John and his wife, us four and no more.” The shut door view

was never really accepted by William Miller himself but circulated among some of the rejects. It

lasted officially until after 1850, when the door was opened a little crack for the young of the

faithful members to slip through, and later for the spouses of those who believed.

It is surprising what a little leaven will do to a whole lump. Even today Adventists speak of the

nonnmembers as “outsiders,” “brothersninnlaw or sistersninnlaw of the church,” or slipping

once in a while, “the unsaved.” In fact, in the Adventist concept, both earlier and later, just

about everybody was and is unsaved. The first reason for this, the “shut door,” was soon dropped

because those who missed the boat of 1844 began to die off. Afterward, the unsaved, even down

to our time, became all those who didn't accept Christ. All Christians knew that, but to make it a

little different, and perhaps to add charm, the Adventist view came to mean anyone who

worshiped on Sunday (Catholic or Protestant); anyone who smoked, chewed, drank, wenched,

went to shows, or wore or ate anything that Adventists didn't-in general,

anyone who was not officially part of their show. In fact, the Adventist view probably was not

much different from other views that went before; it just combined everything into one list to

make it easier to find the persons the church wanted to reject and to keep that door shut a little

longer.

Even those around Ellen had trouble keeping her from drawing things too tight with her visions.

James, her editor husband, had to make it clear that there might be a crack in the door that Ellen

did not have control of. In 1851 he felt impelled to publish in the Review and Herald a lengthy

editorial (with reference to “those who have had any of the gifts of the Spirit”) that included

these words:Those on whom Heaven bestows the greatest blessings are in most danger of being “exalted,” and

of falling, therefore, they need to be exhorted to be humble, and watched over carefully. But how

often have such been looked upon as almost infallible, and they themselves have been apt to

drink in the extremely dangerous idea that all their impressions were the direct promptings of the

Spirit of the Lord [italics added] 2

The same editorial was reprinted in full in the editorial pages in 1853. Then in an 1855 editorial,


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James White referred to those previously published statements to the same effect and added: “No

writer of the Review has ever referred to them [the visions] as authority on any point. The

Review for five years has not published one of them.” 3 With this statement, the battle was

joined. James was to lose out.

It takes a dexterous mind to work its way through two problems at the same time. Often such amind comes up with worthless answers, but it's lots of fun. In theology it's downright enjoyable.

To learn to say nothing well is the first rule. The second rule is to say it in such a way that no one

can question your philosophical conclusions (if you arrive at any). It's like learning a little bit

about everything, so that soon you know everything about nothing. In most libraries, the religion

department is under the subject heading of philosophy-and that is what it is, the defining and

redefining of terms and ideas that have defied defining for centuries.

Ellen and her helpers were masters at reworking past ideas. After the great disappointment of

October 22, 1844, and the futile setting of a few more times and dates, and after consigning most

of the world to hell for' not believing what the Millerites/Adventists themselves were wrong

about and didn't understand, the group still had that problem of the shut door of mercy. As “timecontinued a little longer,” in the words of Ellen, the problem became more pressing. If they

opened the door theologically, they would be admitting they had been wrong. If they kept it shut,

and the good Lord didn't come to get t hem out of the dilemma, they would all die off and it

wouldn't make any difference whether the door was open or shut.

With the skill of a surgeon, Ellen and her group cut their way through without opening the door

at all, but at the same time acting as if they were really doing so. This balancing act was done by

accepting what turned into the “main pillar” of the Advent faith, the theory of the sanctuary.

This theory, which became the major doctrine of the church, was first emphasized by O. R. L.

Crosier, who afterward repudiated it 4 What the theory does is open the door here on earth butthen close it in the courts above. In the words of that once popular song, “Nice work if you can

get it, and you can get it if you try.” The Adventists did try harder than most. (In fact they are

still trying, and that is what has caused the big ado about the separate though related concerns

expressed by Paxton, Brinsmead, and Ford).5

To make the very long story short, here is what took place after the disappointment when Christ

did not come in 1844. Walking through the cornfield with his thoughts one day, a former

Millerite said it came to his mind that the date the Millerites had accepted was correct but the

event was hazy. It was not this earth that was cut off from mercy and about to receive justice, but

the other way around. It was in heaven that justice was being decided (and mercy was still

available here on earth). This process required a lot of heavenly bookkeeping, looking throughthe records, further recording of deeds done and not done, and compiling of vast amounts of

figures that would take some time to total -thus the idea of probation. In addition, there was

even room for the things we didn't do or think of. Ellen was supposed to have written that “we

shall individually be held responsible for doing one jot less than we have ability to do.... We shall

be judged according to what we ought to have done, but did not accomplish because we did not

use our powers to glorify God.... For all the knowledge and ability that we might have gained and

did not, there will be an eternal loss.”6


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It was like a call to the colors. No matter that some have suggested that the poor man in the

cornfield might have seen a scarecrow instead of a vision. No coach could have inspired his team

with a better speech. With a “let's win one for the gipper,” the players ran onto the field- and

have been running ever since, having devised one of the most elaborate systems of salvation by

works that the world has ever seen since the fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70.

Having accepted that justice was being settled in heaven since 1844, the Adventists never did

relish the idea of mercy and grace being too available on earth. In the 1970s and 1980s when the

Australians (Paxton, Brinsmead, and Ford) spoke their minds, the cheap shot at them was that

they were peddling “cheap grace.” This just goes to show that those who grumbled had not

accepted the Gospel view that grace is even cheaper than that-it's free.

When these men went public, the system banned them like the bomb. When they went to tapes

to advance their views, the leaders said that whoever listened had “tape worms.” Thereupon the

leaders closed their meeting by announcing that their own talks were on tapes and were available

for a small fee at the door. (It is well known that churches sell more tapes than most, but it's the

competition that hurts. Somebody is always trying to muscle in on that heavenly franchise.)

In the late 1970s and 1980s, Desmond Ford, a most gifted speaker, was knocking so hard at that

door of mercy that his voice was beginning to be heard around the world. There is nothing

administrators like less than challenges and loud noises. Above all, they don't like to be told

about theology, a subject that is as foreign to them as the Greek some of they barely passed and

have never used. But that door that Ellen and her helpers had shut in 1844 had to be kept shut.

So, like the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, they all boarded their modern horses and headed

for the Sanctuary Review Committee meeting at Glacier View Ranch in Colorado August 10,

1980.

The security there would have made the CIA proud and the presidential convention would look

like a Boy Scout gathering. It was a truly international group of about 115, the majority fitting

the “executive” category and thus beholden to the church in one way or another. Some of the

administrators, who (to say it kindly) were not theologically oriented, tried to lean on that dosed

door-and even suggested some form of oath of loyalty to founder Ellen and her concepts. If the

meeting proved anything at all it was that shooting a man from a distance these days would be a

whole lot cheaper than hanging him in public. It proved also that justice (as defined by the

leaders), not mercy, was still the theme of the church. In the end, after a lot of fingernplay and

charades, Ford was sacked?

The outcome had never really been in doubt. So it was no surprise when the “good old” Reviewtrumpeted: “Overview of a historic meeting: the Sanctuary Review Committee, characterized by

unity and controlled by the Holy Spirit, finds strong support for the church's historic position.” 8

Those hinges on that closed door had gotten mighty rusty since 1844 and Ellen's foray into

theology. Although friends and foes alike had been trying desperately for decades to open up the

door a little, the elders were smart enough to see what perhaps others (such as theologians) did

not see: that is, if that shut door is ever opened, the Adventist heaven and ghetto is desecrated

by being made available to all, regardless of race, creed, or color, and the Adventist church and


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system will have lost forever its heavenly franchise.

Events had to be shaped that way, for part of the Adventist theology is that the redeemed

(meaning them, the faithful Adventists, of course) will some day, during the golden age of the

millennium, sit on those pearly white thrones in the Far Beyond and help to judge the wicked.

There all the juicy morsels of others' acts and sins will be finally revealed to them. That thoughtalone has helped many faithful go on to the end. To think of knowing all about everybody who

didn't make it, and why. And when it's all finished, they will give God a vote of confidence and

thanks that things have turned out the way they felt they should from the beginning. 9

Another very important reason in the Adventist mind for keeping that door closed either here or

in heaven is evangelism. How could they ever cope with the idea that others with dissimilar

habits, customs, and mores a.ne just as saved as they are? What would it do to the idea

Adventists have that all the other churches of the world are the whores and harlots that the

book of Revelation speaks of? This idea had come direct from the prophet. She had seen torture

chambers in the basements of Catholic churches, where all men that finally worshiped on Sunday

were to have a “mark of the beast,” and where Adventists, as the Waldenses and Hussites of old,were to be hunted like dogs in the mountain fastnesses, to be dispossessed and finally killed by

the sword.'

Fear has no peer as a substitute for motivation to action. With fear the lame can scale the highest

wall, the blind can see enough to get out of the way, and the mute can have instant fluency.

Love, the motivation encouraged by the Scriptures, had its best (and some think last)

demonstration on the Cross-and that was a long time ago. Besides, love has to be learned. Fear,

with its twin sister Guilt, always lurks in the shadows of the mind and is readily available if

someone touches the right button. And theologians, divines, and spiritual administrators are

experts at touching the right buttons.

To the 1844 leftovers, the idea was not new that justice had to be purchased by the penitent and

mercy was free. But the idea was given emphasis by the pen of Ellen White, in whose mind

shadows darker than most lay close to the surface. In her Testimonies for the Church she tells of

her early experience.

It cannot be disregarded that at nine years of age she was struck with a stone, and the blow was

so severe that her later impression was that she nearly died. She was disfigured for life. She said

she lay “in a stupor,' for three weeks. When she began to recover and saw how disfigured she was,

she wanted to die. She became melancholy and avoided company. She said, “My nervous system

was prostrated.”10 She was terribly frightened and lonely, and often she was terrified by thethought that she might be “eternally lost.” She thought that “the fate of a Condemned sinner”11

would be hers, and she feared that she would lose her reason.

So here is a teenager who from the age of thirteen to seventeen was feeble, sickly, unschooled,

impressionable, and abnormally religious and excitable at the time she first attended William

Miller's 1840 lectures predicting the end of the world in 1843n44. During this time she herself

felt that she was shut out from heaven. Indeed, because of her experience in life, she was shut


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out, and thus out, from those around her. With time, her attitudes were modified and she came

to feel somewhat more accepted. But her writings, even throughout the books she published in

the 1870s and 1880s, show clearly a person who looked with great apprehensiveness on much

that was the real life around her. She lived in a frightening world and longed for the time when

all she was afraid of would finally end.'12

This isolation she was able to provide for herself. Her shut door, though, is still closed in the

minds of Adventists today. With each new world or local crisis, each new custom that is

unacceptable, and all changing mores, the Adventist shuts his door a little tighter, sleeps with his

bags packed, and longs for that final act of justice that will give him and his Clan, only, the

assurance of mercy they so much need.'13

William S. Sadler-widely known Chicago physician and surgeon of his time, writer, personal

friend of Ellen White, sonninnlaw of John Harvey Kellogg-wrote:

Every now and then some one arises who attempts to make other people believe in the things

which they see or hear in their own minds. Self-styled “prophets” arise to convince us of the

reality of their visions. Odd geniuses appear who tell us of the voices they hear, and if they seemfairly sane and socially conventional in every way, they are sometimes able to build up vast

followings, to create cults and establish churches; whereas, if they are too bold in their

imaginings, if they see a little too far or hear a little too much, they are promptly seized and

quickly lodged safe within the confines of an Insane asylum. 14

This psychic haven is a safe region, not subject to challenge by logic, argument, evidence, or

reality. And in spite of being denied all these nutrients of rational behavior and persuasion, men

will still believe in the unbelievable. The ideas of the shut door, the investigative judgment, the

denial of the biblical doctrine of divine grace and mercy freely available to all since the Cross

were all taken by the Adventists and made conditional-on the basis of concepts rejected by most(even the originators) but endorsed and promoted by Ellen White.

And this brings us now to the last door that was closed in 1844 by Ellen and the leftover

Millerites-the Gospel, the Good News of salvation. The Adventist sins are never really forgiven.

They are carried on the books of heaven until payday, the Judgment-Day. No system that thrives

and perpetuates itself on such a scandal can bring happiness to the human mind or experience.

The constant reviews by the church system, the daily inspections demanded by the mind, and the

judgmental investigations of life, the comparisons with the lives of others to see if one measures

up-these sap the strength and courage. By the time the “true believer” has done his daily spiritual

calisthenics and checked over his list of do's and don'ts he is depleted. His concept of life is thatGod flays him over every hill, down every dale, through every forest, until, exhausted, he drops

dead. In each case, if his dues are paid up, the Lord bends over and says, “Well done, thou good

and faithful servant.”' 15

In such a system, the patron saint becomes the substitute for the Saviour. Heaven and the

herenandnnow are viewed through the eyes of that nineteenthncentury saint. Works become

the way to win or keep the concessions granted by the privileged, and life becomes a “holy”


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competition with other believers. No man likes to compete in an area in which he doesn't excel;

so each one stakes out a claim that he can work best. It might be diet with one, clothing with

another, monasticism for the extreme. Whatever the task, life becomes a vast effort to outdo the

competition by climbing that greased pole first. If one can only “endure to the end” and outlast

or outsmart the competition, justice says that his place is assured in the hereafter, even if it was

hell living in the here and now.

Thus it has always been and always will be when the Ellens of the earth convince followers that

by heavenly bookkeeping God will save or even satisfy the human soul or desire for justice.

Whenever theologians or believers try playing semantical games with doctrines, they always end

up losing the Saviour and the Gospel here and make a mystic mess of the hereafter. How little

did young Ellen and her small band of true believers realize when they shut the door in 1844,

that in trying to save face because of the disappointment experienced they were really taking

away the Lord from tens of thousands and closing a door of love and mercy forever for many

others. Such has been the experience of all who have tried to become, under whatever title, the

keeper of the keys of salvation-that Gospel of Good News.

References and Notes

1. Ingemar Linden, The Last Trump, (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1978) pp. 80n 07.

2. James White, “The Gifts of the Gospel Church,” Second Advent Review nn./l.SabAn.th

Heral./11 (21 April lX5l\ n 7)

3. James White, “The Gifts of the Gospel Church,” Review 4 (9June 1853): 13; J. W., “A Test,”

Review 7 (16 October 1855): 61.

4. L. Richard Conradi, The Founders of the Seventhnday Adventist Denomination (Plainview,

NJ: The Amencan Sabbath Tract Society, 1939).

5. Robert D. Brinsmead, Judged by the Gospel. Desmond Ford, Daniel 8:14, the Day of

Atonement, and the Investigative Judgment. Geoffrey J. Paxton, The Shaking of Adventism.

6. Ellen G. White, Christ's Object Lessons (Mountain View: Pacific Press Publishing Association,

1900), p. 363.

7. Review 157 (May,June,July 1980).

8. Review 157 (4 September 1980).

9. EGW, The Creat Controversy between Chnst and Satan (Mountain View: PPPA, 1888,

1911). See chapter 28, “Facing Life's Record (The Investigative Judgment),” and chapter 41,

“Desolation of the Earth.” Recent studies show that a large part of these chapters came from the

writings of Uriah Smith.


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10. EGW, Early Writings (Washington: Review and Herald Publishing Assn. assn., 1882), pp.

277n85. See also EGW's Country Living (Washington: RHPA)

11. EGW, Testimonies for the Church, 9 vols. (Mountain View: PPPA, 1885, 1909), vol. 1, pp.

9n16, 25.

12. EGW, Christian Experience and Teachings(Mountain View: PPPA, 1922).

13.dionathan M. Butler, “The World of E. G. White and the End of the World ,”Spectrum 10,

no. 2 (August 1979): 2n13.

14. William S. Sadler, The Truth about Spiritualism(Chicago: A. C. McClurg)

15. Matthew 25:21.


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The White Lie!

Chapter 3: Say It Isn't So

The early development of how Ellen White became known as a prophet!

by Walter Rea

The success and genius of any religious movement is to tell the members what they want to hear

and make sure they don't hear what you don't want them to hear. Nothing affords such

opportunities in this field as the press. Gutenberg didn't have the foggiest idea of what doors he

was opening when he invented the printing press. Since the Dark Ages, when truth was chained

to the wall of the library so that no one could take it out of the vault (even with a library card),

mankind had to receive and accept what was handed out by the church fathers. Of course that

was a little better than when the fathers enforced knowledge with a blowgun or an axe handle,

but still it was a form of control.

The art of printing was to develop to the place where the object was not to control the body with

weapons but to control the mind with print. Freethinkers have always gotten into trouble. In thetime of Moses, if anyone started a fire on his own to enjoy a cup of hot herb tea on Sabbath, he

was stoned, and not in the modern sense of the word either. If he wandered around in the local

swapmeet on Sabbath in the days of Nehemiah, he might run the risk of having his beard pulled

or his toupee disrupted. Even in the New Testament times, if Ananias kept out a few shekels

from the tithe to pay the rent, he was told by the local divine to drop dead--which he did.1

So comes printing. The press was much better in its approach; no messes to clean up, no bodies

to bury. Just follow the twin rules: Tell the people what you want them to hear; don't let them

hear what you don't want them to hear. The first rule is not too difficult, but the second still

takes some form of control. If people can't read, they can't be reached by reading; if they canread, they might be reached by the wrong reading. How churches solve this problem is to assign it

to God. That's an old idea too. God has often been given credit for things he didn't do; and since

the beginning of time the devil has been exonerated for things he did do. (Read Adam and the

Apple in the Genesis story of Creation.)

The Adventists were not the first to put things all together, but they were more successful than

some. The market they started with was small and scattered, but with the help of Ellen it was to

grow and consolidate James White was a teacher of sorts and knew the power of the press-

especially the power of the controlled press and how much better it was to let God control it. Just

convince the readers that God was writing what they were reading (thus giving it authority) and

God was not in what they were told not to read. Not a bad idea for a group of beginners. Itworked then, and it has been working ever since-until recent times when a few people had the

nerve to get off the train and go around back to see what was moving the thing.2

So much for the system. Now how to put it all together. Who was to do the writing for God?

Certainly not James. His foray into writing was to include only four books, all of them largely

copied from someone else. Ellen, who had only a third-grade education, had not yet written

anything of note. Not a very marketable combination at a time when education was just


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beginning to catch on. Another time and place perhaps. But gradually came the brilliant

experiment that made it all work, the capsheaf of genius. Why not steal it all, in the name of

God.

After all, it had been done before-or so the modern defenders of the Adventist faith were to

propound some one hundred thirty years later. It came to be said that St. Luke copied from St.Mark and that Paul was sneaking material from the Greeks without even letting them know.

John the Revelator was stealing from ancient pagans for his ideas, and Jude did a test run from

some early pseudepigraphical works. Even Moses, instead of lifting the Ten Commandments from

God, is said to have taken them from Hammurabi, an ancient lawgiver, or even others before his

time.3

In Ellen's day it was a natural. Before her time there had been Emanuel Swedenborg, who had

visions for the king and royal family around 1740. He founded a church and saw a lot of things

others didn't see, some of which came to pass. The leader of the Shakers in America, Ann Lee,

like Ellen, had no education but wrote “testimonies” to the members. Also like Mrs. White, she

required “a peculiar kind of dress,” and “opposed war and the use of pork.” In 1792 JoannaSouthcott, a domestic servant, of poor parents and little education, announced herself a

prophetess and said that her trances told her that Christ was to have a speedy advent.4

Joseph Smith of Mormon fame had just passed off the scene in 1844.

That was a great disappointment to both him and his followers, as he was shot. His trip was

short. He was born in 1805 and he died in 1844, the year Mrs. White began to have her

revelations. He was poor and unknown until he began to have “visions” and “revelations” and to

see and talk with angels. He taught the Second Advent, and his followers were to become the

Latter-Day Saints (other churches were heathen or gentiles). Like the Adventists, the LDSChurch rewrote the Bible through their prophet and had new revelations-even though some

recent research seems to confirm that the material was stolen.5

The list doesn't end. Mary Baker Eddy, of Christian Science fame, was also around most of Ellen's

life. Although they differed in their thinking, the disciples of both believed that their prophet was

inspired of God and their writings should be used to interpret the Bible. The remarkable Charles

T. Russell, of Watchtower and Jehovah's Witness connection, also lived during the time of Ellen.

His followers believe they are the only true church and all others are “Babylon.” Adventists

would subscribe to the last part but regard themselves as composing the only true church.`

Ellen was to start taking others' material slowly. In the early 1840s two men who had beenimpressed with the Millerite movement were Hazen Foss and William E. Foy. In September 1844

Foss was supposed to have received a vision that the advent people, with their trials and

persecutions, were on their way to the City of God. He was told that if he refused to give the

message to others it would be given to the weakest of the Lord's children. Foy also had been in

touch with the future and had been telling about it in print and at public meetings since

sometime in January 1842. Ellen had listened to Foy speak in Beethoven Hall in her home city,

Portland, Maine, when she was a girl.7 Since she was related to Foss by marriage, there is no


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reason to believe that she could not have read or heard about his visions as well as Foy's.

The setting now was perfect for both Ellen and God. The two men had refused to go on the

stump with the visions, and one had been told that God would then give it to the weakest of the

weak. So who could be weaker than Ellen? In early 1842, not yet fifteen years old, she was having

lots of trouble emotionally and physically, by her own account. She was still having problems in1844. Her emotional and physical turmoil could be compounded by the disappointment of the

Miller drive toward eternity. With some misgivings because of her age and lack of experience, she

took the torch from the fallen hands of both Foy and Foss and launched forth in her first vision.8

It was almost a carbon copy of the visions that Foy and Foss acknowledged God had given them,

and it was so true to the original that it guaranteed the future success of one of the most

remarkable cases of literary “borrowing” the world has ever seen.

Definition of Plagiarism:

One Webster dictionary edition defines a plagiarist as follows:

One that purloins the writings of another and puts them off as his own.... The appropriation or

imitation of the language, ideas, and thoughts of another author, and representation of them as

one's own original work.... The act of purloining another man's literary works or introducing

passages from another man's writings and putting them off as one's own; literary thief

Harsh as it seems, the definition would characterize Ellen at age seventeen as a thief-and one

who remained so the rest of her life, with enormous help and encouragement from others. That

seems to be a very hard judgment. Many of the present apologists for Ellen White have tried to

extricate her from the situation by proposing that perhaps God has a different standard for

prophets.

9

Others seem satisfied with the thought that “everyone was doing it.” It seems to haveescaped them that with that kind of logic the sky would be the limit in human conduct.

Others would believe that “she just didn't know.” But certainly a lot of those around her over the

years did know and were troubled. Uriah Smith, an early and longtime editor of the Review,

knew. In 1864 the following appeared unsigned on the editorial page:

Plagiarism

This is a word that is used to signify “literary theft,” or taking the productions of another and

passing them off as one s own.

In the World's Crisis of Aug. 23, 1864, we find a niece of poetry duly headed, “For the World'sCrisis,' and signed “Luthera B. Weaver.” What was our surprise, therefore, to find in this piece

our familiar hymn,

“Long upon the mountain weary

Have the scattered flock been torn.”

This piece was written by Annie R. Smith, and was first published in the Review, vol. ii, no. 8,


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Dec. 9, 1851, and has been in our hymn book ever since the first edition thereafter issued. But

worst of all the piece is mutilated, the second and most significant verse being suppressed;

namely,

“Now the light of truth they're seeking, In its onward track pursue;

All the Ten Commandments keeping, They are holy, just and true. On the words of life they're feeding,

Precious to their taste so sweet,

All their Master's precepts heeding, Bowing humbly at his feet.”

But perhaps this would clearly have revealed its origin, as scarcely any class of people at the

present day, except Seventh-Day Adventists, have anything to say about All the commandments

of God, &c. We are perfectly willing that pieces from the Review, or any of our books should be

published to any extent, and all we ask is, that simple justice be done us, by due credit being

given!101

Smith's editorial honesty had a lasting effect on the paper. In 1922, when Francis M. Wilcox waseditor, the Review had two brief articles on the subject of stealing. One of them, unsigned, was

on an editorial page under the title “Are You a Plagiarist? If So, Please Do Not Write for the

Review.”“ The other short article, entitled “Spiritual Plagiarism,” by J. B. Gallion, was even a bit

more specific:

Plagiarism is the act by one author or writer of using the productions of another without giving

him credit. For example, if you were to write an article in which you inserted, “The Psalm of Life”

or any part of it, and permit it to pass under your name, as your own production, not giving credit

to the poet Longfellow, you would be guilty of the crime of plagiarism. “Well,” you say,

“everybody knows that Longfellow wrote 'The Psalm of Life.' “ A great many do, it is true, butmany do not. Those who are ignorant of the fact might easily be deceived; but whether they

know or not, does not lessen your guilt. You have taken what is not yours, and therefore are

guilty of literary theft. There are but a few, perhaps, who fall under the ban of plagiarism in the

literary world!12

In line with the Review's “honest and open” policies that seem to encourage the readers to

practice honesty through the years, there were also those who tried to get Ellen to practice that

same policy. A June article in the Review as late as 1980 stated that once Ellen was told how

wrong it was to do what she was doing, she told one and all that, from that time on, credit should

be given to whomever it was due. A reader wrote the Review asking for the date of that

remarkable conversation and admission. Here is the reply that the rest of the reading publicnever had a chance to see:

You ask the date when Ellen White gave instruction that the authors of quoted material

should be included in footnotes in her writings. The date for this was around 1909. You ask also

in what later works this instruction was carried out. The only book that this instruction applied

to was The Great Controversy which was then republished with these footnotes in 1911?13


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There you have it. In 1909, the date given above, Ellen was then eighty-two years old, six years

from the grave. In over seventy years of stealing ideas, words, and phrases, never once did she

make any specific confession. The publishers made only a vague general statement concerning

revision of The Great Controversy-and that only after the book had become a point of great

controversy itself.

The final fallback for prophets and seers, when discovery comes too close, is that God made them

do it, that they see and say things that others have said, and that they are able to see and say

them in exactly the same words as others because God gave it to them first. They just didn't get

around to letting anyone know until they were discovered.

Robert W. Olson, the present head of the White Estate, takes such a view in his paper of

September 12, 1978, headed, “Wylie's Language Used to Describe What She Had Already Seen

Herself May 15, 1887.” The paper is given over to a comparison of Ellen's diary written in

Switzerland in 1887 with a quotation from James A. Wylie's The History of Protestantism, 1876.

It goes like this:14

Ellen G. White

James A. Wylie

Zurich is pleasantly situated on the shores of Lake Zurich. This is a noble expanse of water,

enclosed with banks which swell upwards, clothed with vineyards and pine forests, from amid

which hamlets and white villas gleam out amid trees and cultivated hills which give variety and

beauty to the picture, while in the far off horizon the glaciers are seen blending with the golden

clouds. On the right the region is walled in with the craggy rampart of the Albis Alp, but the

mountains stand back from the shore and by permitting the light to fall freely upon the bosom of

the Lake and on the ample sweep of its lovely and fertile banks, give a beauty to the picturewhich pen or brush of the artist could not equal. The neighboring lake of Zug is in marked

contrast to Zurich. The placid waters and slumbering shore seem perpetually wrapped in the

shadows. [ms. 29-1887]

Zurich is pleasantly situated on the shores of the lake of that name. This IS a noble expanse of

water, enclosed within banks which swell gently upwards, clothed here with vineyards there with

pine-forests, from amid which hamlets and white villas gleam out and enliven the scene, while m

the far-off horizon the glaciers are seen blending with the golden clouds. On the right the region

is walled in by the craggy rampart of Albis Alp, but the mountains stand back from the shore,

and by permitting the light to fall freely upon the bosom of the lake, and on the ample sweep of

its lovely and fertile banks, give a freshness and airiness to the prospect as seen from the city,which strikingly contrasts with the neighboring Lake of Zug, where the placid waters and the

slumbering shore seem perpetually wrapped in the shadows of the great mountains.

The idea that Ellen saw everything first from God in the words of whomever she was copying was

not new with Olson. In 1889 at Healdsburg, California, some of the White defenders debated the

members of the local ministerial group. After showing scores of comparisons from writers that

Ellen had used for her material, the Healdsburg ministers said:


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Elder Healey would have the Committee believe that she is not a reading woman. And also

asked them to believe that the historical facts and even the quotations

The White Lie by Walter T. Rea Sr.

Documents

Transcript of The White Lie by Walter T. Rea Sr.